Batsmen-friendly Hyderabad wkt for India-Eng ODI: Curator

The curator has promised a good batting strip for the first One-day international between India and England in Hyderabad on Friday, saying the batsman could go for their shots on a 'sporting wicket'.

The pitch that will be used for the series-opener is the one used for the Champions League Twenty20 matches.

Curator Y L Chandrasekhar said it will be a sporting wicket, which batsmen will like.

"We had initially zeroed in on two strips among the five and now the match will be played on the strip that was used for Champions League Twenty20," Chandrasekhar said.

The pitch, from a distance, looks tailor-made for the Indian team, which has not won an international match for quite some time.

Chandrasekhar was quick to point out that he did not get any 'feelers from Indian camp' while preparing the pitch.

"There wasn't any request from the team management. I have prepared a strip which will be good for stroke-play. I can assure that it is a sporting wicket. If you check out on the Champions League T20 matches, the ones which were played on this strip were high scoring games," he stated.

The highest score on the match strip during CLT20 was 188 by South Australia Redbacks while KKR, in reply, scored 169.

Chandrasekhar also assured that the team bowling second won't be affected by the dew factor which is pretty common in the sub-continent.

"Dew won't be a factor," he said, informing that the Hyderabad Cricket Association possesses a good drainage facility, and in case there is a rain delay, it won't take much time to restart the proceedings.

The Indian team on Wednesday had a two-and-a-half hour session. The only player to miss out was opener Gautam Gambhir, who was supposed to arrive late in the evening.

Gambhir, who played back-to-back matches in the Challenger Series in Nagpur, was excused from the net session.

All the top order batsmen had a decent hit in the middle. Ajinkya Rahane stood out, as he looked solid during the 45 minutes that he batted at the nets.

Suresh Raina was the first to enter the nets while his colleagues were still busy playing football. Raina practiced horizontal bat shots.

Photograph: MS Dhoni and Alastair Cup with the Airtel Cup for the ODI series